not much going on but somehow super busy all the time

Not much has been going on and life has been crazy! How is that even possible? It feels like I've just been taking tests non-stop and filling out applications. One day I was feeling super stressed and like I wasn’t ever going to catch up with all my work and I went over to #9 to chill for a little while before tackling the ever-growing list of tests to prepare for. While there I just had a blast and lost track of time and this one guy, Brian, who is always so happy even when everything is going wrong for him convinced me to go play Ultimate Frisbee at 11 o’clock at night. It was like 30* outside and he wanted to play OUTSIDE! Well I went, mostly because I have the light up Frisbee, and had a blast. I forgot all about the mountain of work I needed to do and had the best night’s sleep ever. I don’t know if Brian knows how awesome he is but I feel like everyone should get to know him and his brother who is on a mission.

This week I paid a lot of bills and was like ok I have enough food and stuff to last me until my pay check comes next week then Utah weather happened and I realized that I did not have enough gas in my car to drive to school (one of the perils of always riding my bike except to wal mart so I always forget to see how much gas is left) and then to work then back to school. So I rode my bike praying that it wouldn’t snow until I got home. Well this guy who is in my two math classes and he asked if I would like to do the homework after school. I went and did my homework with him in the tutoring lab and as we were walking out to leave I noticed that it had started to snow way hard so I just said “I’m gonna wait a while for the snow to ease up then ride home.” He asked me why I didn’t drive when everyone knew it was gonna snow and I told him I planned poorly so now I had to deal with it but I wasn’t worried, because after all this is Utah, you just need to wait a few minutes and the weather will change, it may not get better but it will change. Well the next day we also did our homework together and the same thing happened but he had planned for it this time and had borrowed a truck so that I wouldn’t spend my evening waiting for the storm to end. I am so thankful to live in a place where people will go out of their way to help someone out.

If you hadn’t heard yet I am going on a study abroad in Greece. There is a never ending amount of paperwork associated with this ‘adventure of a lifetime’. While I was thinking about going on this study abroad I asked a few professors and a few students what they thought about me going and I always got the same reply- “This will be the best and possibly the hardest thing you do” I am nervously excited to go. Some days, when things are going really bad and I call home like ten times I think how am I going to last a whole semester in a foreign country? I can’t just call home when I’m having a bad day, then I think well this will be the best experience for me to learn how to figure things out on my own.  

Today in church I also realized that I won't be completely on my own; the church will always be there to help, even if I can’t understand a single word being said you can always feel at home learning the teachings of Christ. We had a wonderful lesson out of the new relief society book and it made me think about how lucky I am to belong to this wonderful church where its members will go out of their way to help someone out.

Also pretty much the whole town has been dealing with mice. It seems like wal-mart cannot keep mouse traps in stock as fast as people need them.

Well that is pretty much what has been going on in good ol’ Cedar City

Oh ya thanks for all the awesome birthday presents!

My friends say I've officially achieved nerd status

So the other night my friends asked if I wanted to go play capture the flag and I had to say I couldn’t because I hadn’t written a paper that I had known was due the next day for 2 weeks. They asked me why I didn’t write it and my response was because my calculus homework was more fun and easier than writing the paper. Ya…that was not the answer they were expecting and they promptly told me how much of a nerd I’ve become. But I don’t think they understand how much fun the tutoring center is. Everyone there knows each other because the same people are there at the same times each day so you get to know the people and everyone helps everyone with their work and we just goof off sometimes. It really is more fun to do math homework than to write a paper, not to mention easier. With math there is only one answer you have to aim for and if you get that answer then you get all the points for the problem, but with writing papers you just have to hope the teacher will like what you think is the right answer. There’s not a definite answer with papers, I never know what the right answer is I absolutely hate writing papers!

I made up my schedule for next semester and I was looking at it thinking ya next semester is going to be good. My schedule consists of 3 math classes and orchestra. We were talking about next semester in the tutoring center and 3 of us are taking the same classes, can I just say that next semester is going to rock!

I also decided that I could not have lived in the snail-mail times. It drives me nuts to have to wait for letters from friends on missions instead of just being able to text them. Not to mention that the story isn’t as funny by the time they get the letter read it and write back.

Wanna hear what happens when you have a class with the elders quorum president and the second counselor in the bishopric? Well you make a suggestion that it’s too cold to do the activity outside and they agree and change the activity to be inside but both happen to be busy that night so they can’t tell everyone that it got changed so they conveniently volunteer you to tell everyone. I spent my Friday night going around to all the apartments and telling everyone that we changed it to be at the church. On the bright side I now know more people than I did on Thursday night.

How college students spend Friday nights

There was an institute date night last Friday and for some reason like no one got asked to go, so we decided to have our own party. How did we party? We went to Wal-Mart and bought finger-paints and spent the night painting pictures and acting like little kids; making marks on others papers, flinging paint at each other and all. It was an awesome night. There’s no better way to get to know people than to come together and come up with an idea of what to paint.

I am grateful to live in a ward where everyone gets along so well, even when people fling paint at them. Not one person got angry or snapped at another and believe me there were plenty of times that someone could have and others would have agreed with them. Instead of getting angry we just laughed and kept on painting.

These are the handprints of every one that was there.

We all signed our names on our handprint

see the guy laying down in the very bottom right hand corner,

well it was a bad idea to fall asleep with so much paint,

he ended up with a green face

the guy holding the one of the sunset and the girl with her arm on him went on the date night. they just came at the end when we were taking the picture, they didnt paint any

This Friday night I was feeling kinda angry and like I didn’t want to be in Cedar, I was thinking man I should have caught a ride home with the people going to Salt Lake. This feeling came because on Thursday I went to help someone with a math question really quick then go back and finish my math homework. As I left my apartment I said hey don’t lock the door I’ll be right back. Well I ended up not coming right back because then someone else texted me and asked me to come over and help them with their homework, which was fine I love explaining their assignment in a way they understand and will be able to do on the test. But right back turned into 3 hours later and two other peoples math assignments, mine still undone. Then I got talked into playing a game with some friends, which was a great stress reliever and a boat load of fun.

Well after the game I went home, which was just next door, to find that the door had been locked! No biggie I’ll just text them and ask to be let in, well they didn’t answer my text or my call or the never ending knocking and doorbell ringing that my friends put into effect. So we decided to break in through the window, ya it’s that easy to get in if you forget to put the bar in the window. It was now 12 o’clock and I had to be awake at 6. I went and brushed my teeth and could hear footsteps upstairs! Then one of my roommates came down and got a drink of water and started watching TV! I was sooooooooooooo mad! I had just spent a good 20 minutes trying to get in and they were awake! When I woke up, 15 min before my class started because I accidently slept through my alarm, my anger intensified by seeing the huge mess that was still in the kitchen from Tuesday making it near impossible to make a quick sandwich for lunch before hurrying to school.

While at school I got a text asking if I would like to come their taco pollo fiesta in la bocca, (we had a crazy name the food night last year and that’s what we named this dish). I was so excited to hang out with my roommate from last year and was reminded that it’s not bad living here it’s awesome! I then went to that party, bringing my keys with me. When I came home at 1 the door was unlocked and both of my roommates were dead asleep! I just don’t get it, if I ask them to leave it unlocked they lock it if I don’t say anything they leave it unlocked.

Also at that party my roommate from last year told me that they had an extra room in their apartment so I should just move in with them. I was so happy to hear that, as my roommates disgust me, they frequently leave half eaten meals on the counter for days and just leave trash laying around everywhere. So for next semester I have put my contract up for sale in hopes that I can move in with my friends.

Has anyone seen the movie Hanna? If so what did you think? We watched it at the party and IDK how I feel about it.

Things found on Desertbook.com

So my roommates recently decorated our apartment...........With pictures of half naked people.....ya....and other pictures that don't really make me feel at home, they kinda made our apartment feel very worldly and not really like a house the Lord would ever visit. (I did ask them to take one down and they did so now it’s not as bad but the other day Brian and I were hanging out and he was like so we should go over to #9 cause that picture is totally distracting me.) So I decided I need to get a big picture of a temple and hang it in the one place there isn't a picture. I found lots of cool stuff on Desertbook.com here are some of the things I liked most.

These are really cool pictures there are a lot of different people you can choose from

Life is not about what you have, it is about who you are

otherwise they'll take you to the hospital and check for brain injuries

I think I'm gonna buy this picture

Loud, yes in deed

Best family ever!

The other day I was complaining about how my mom has a job and I can’t just call her whenever I want and have a long conversation and how when I go home to visit she doesn’t get home until late and then the people I was talking with were like so let me get this straight, your mad because your mom got a job? I said yes I’m used to my mom always being there whenever I want her to be, she never worked when I lived at home.  I then realized how stupid that was. This one guys parents don’t help him out at all and he was like stop complaining about it, your parents help you pay for college and your car and your phone (they were having a conversation one day about how much their insurance and phone bills were and they asked me and I had to say I don’t know my parents help me out with that stuff I just have to do my best and graduate) I then realized that I have the best parents on earth.

As I get to know more people the more I realize that I have the best family there is, even if we make fun of each other. It surprises me how many parents send their kids to school and don’t help them at all or even care how hard of a time they are having. One person asked me who I was texting and I said my daddy and they said I don’t even know the last time I talked to my parents. I just don’t get that. I love my family, all their craziness and teasing. I wouldn’t trade my family in for any other family.

I love the random text conversations with my parents, and the random pictures from Jordan and Dylan, and especially the awesome conversations about Phineas and Ferb with Lauren, (even if my friends do get a hold of my phone and make fun of me) I love it all.

I love the surprise packages from the office (even if the UPS man always comes while I’m in class so I have to go pick it up) they always make my week better and my friends like to see what crazy stuff I got this time. I love that my family is strong in the church and raised me to know who I am and what I stand for. I have seen too many people move out and go astray because they didn’t make the choice when they were young to stay on the straight and narrow they just followed their parents. I am grateful that my family lets us make our own mistakes and then helps us to clean them up.

I’m grateful that my mom taught me to stand strong and how to make food “out of nothing” as my roommates say. (apparently only having 2 eggs, butter and milk in the fridge should not allow you to make delicious meals, I feel that those are the main ingredients to most delicious foods) I’m also very grateful that she taught me how to clean up after myself. Roommates teach you a lot about yourself and I have learned that I do not function well if there is a layer of food on the counters and every dish is dirty.

I’m grateful that my family taught me that if your legs work well by golly why are you driving? It’s cheaper and healthier to walk or ride a bike to school.

I’m grateful that our family only expects your best out of you and doesn’t look down on you because you’re not studying law like your dad wanted or you’re not becoming a doctor like your grandpa, we love each other no matter what and I love that.

I’m grateful that we are competitive in a good way and that we push each other to do great things we never would have done. Like run the Red Rock Relay, all my friends told me I was insane when I would try to leave activities early so I could go run, most of them told me to just quit, but that competitiveness in me made me run all 18.2 miles of my legs of the race. Now my friends are just amazed at my stubbornness.

I’m grateful that no one in our family insists that we all get together and go to a photographer and stand all stiff next to each other to get pictures. I like crazy ones where only half of us are looking, that’s more like our family.

I’m most grateful that families are FOREVER. I love this crazy family of ours and am grateful that we will be able to bother each other for all eternity.   

My gratefull list could go on forever but I have to stop typing at some point and go to bed.

this is how all families should do family pictures

we're all in the same place same time with smiles better take a picture

Red Rock Relay

The Red Rock Relay was the best worst weekend of my life! I had so much fun cheering everyone on and had a little bit of sorta fun running my miles. We didn’t take a ton of pictures, things were a little crazy but we did take a few.

My first leg was all downhill and 6.4 miles with a chance of snow. Yes I said snow. I ran my first leg at about 4pm I have no clue what my time was other than I remember thinking that I did it in about the same amount of time I figured I would so I’m guessing about an hour. On this leg I realized that playing ultimate Frisbee instead of running is not a good choice. I pushed myself too hard and had a slight o boy I need to stop running and focus on breathing so I don’t die moment. Our car had a lot of energy and a lot of noise makers, I’m pretty sure that by the end of the race the other runners were sick of our car yelling at every runner that we passed. By the time we passed the baton on to the other car, which had 3 married couples in it, they had decided that our car was the frat house car.  

Second leg and wondering what on earth I got myself into. Did I really pay to wake up at 2 in the morning and run 5.2 miles? I did not want to get out of the car. I did though and I now understand why that leg was called “the spooky leg” it was really creepy running at night, you could see the shadows of the runners behind you and you could hear the noises of the night. About half way through another runner was coming up behind me and their light was moving around so much it was like making me sea sick. I finally slowed down so they could pass me and I kept going slow until their light was no longer making me sea sick. Then a little while later I passed her while she was stopped getting water! Agggggg! I couldn’t believe I was next to super moving light person so at my next water stop I waited for her to pass me and get far far ahead so I wouldn’t have to see it moving all around. As soon as that leg was over all I wanted to do was curl up and sleep but we still had to cheer on our team mates so I yelled as loud as I could at our next runner. By the time our next runner was up I was sooo sleepy. We went up a few miles to wait to give Jaynee water but we all fell asleep! Even the driver fell asleep while we were parked waiting for Jaynee to get to us. I woke up and was like hey everyones asleep did Jaynee pass what time did she start, no one knew so we waited for a few runners to pass us then drove up a little ways with everyone awake looking out the window so we wouldn’t miss her again. She was the last runner of our van for that leg and she was excited to be done so she was sprinting into the finish to find that our other van was not there! That seemed to be the theme of that stop. This girl ran in after Jaynee to find that her next runner also wasn’t there and she proclaimed “Where the swear word is my van?” after about 10 seconds she promptly found the swear words but her attempt to keep it clean was very funny. After this leg we went to the Anderson’s house in St. George and as soon as we got there everyone was like shower must shower. As people showered they would come out of a bedroom to let someone else shower and would just sleep where they fell. That was the best 2 hours of sleep I’ve ever had.

My last leg was called “Run Tiger Run” it was 6.8 miles almost all uphill in the middle of the day in Hurricane(hur-a-ken) Utah. We started our race at like 50* and ended it at like 90*. The whole time during my last leg I was thinking man I would do anything to be running in 50* weather in the rain, even though I complained at the time. It was so hot I thought I was going to die. I definitely didn’t have enough sugar in me. My car stopped and gave me some water and said I’ll see you in no more than 2 miles. I swear I ran and ran and I never saw them, turns out they went to the store! Ok so they went to buy a spray bottle because it was just way too hot out there to be running. When I finished running my last leg I ate so much food, I was so excited to be done running.

I loved and hated every minute of this weekend. If I’m gonna do it again I definitely have to train for real, not playing ultimate and staying up until 2 am. It makes for good endurance of staying awake but does not help with the sore muscles at all!

I was so happy to live so close to the finish line. I was showered and asleep by like 8:30 and didn’t wake up until like 10 on Sunday. When I stood up to go to the bathroom, note to self do not drink a whole Gatorade right before bed, my calves refused to hold me up, I almost just gave up on going to the bathroom. At church I was still tired so I was kinda leaning over with my eyes shut when my friend said if you weren’t going to pay attention why did you even come then I told her exactly what the lesson was on and who had commented and even a few comments that I had but I was not going to raise my hand for anything then she was just impressed and said my comments and took all the credit for my awesomeness.

We have ward prayer after the fireside every Sunday and it is upstairs, like at least 25 steps. The only reason I went was because I owed someone $10 and I NEVER see them on campus and at church they were like well we’ll both be at ward prayer so I went and climbed up the stairs to find that they weren’t there! I was mad until I saw that the treat was cream cheese wrapped in cinnamon covered bread stuff, delicious. When I made it to the room that prayer was in I sat in the first seat and the bishop goes hey Brittney how ya doin’?  Would you like to play some prelude music? I said I made it up all the stairs, and only if the piano comes to me. I should probably mention that I was wearing a hoodie and running shorts and I was soaking wet, even rain couldn’t make my legs move any faster. He comes over and was like are doin ok? I was like I’m great I ran all of my legs all by myself in the time I thought I would, I can’t walk but I did it. Most of the people in my ward said I was crazy and that none of them would do it. When they asked me how it was I would answer best worst weekend of my life. It got a lot of laughs. The person who didn’t show up did invite me to come to dinner though so I guess that made up for me walking up all those stairs and then back down them.

I went to check our team in becuase it was on Thursday night

and my team was still in the Springville/Mapleton area. It paid off though I brought a friend and we got a free dinner out of it.

oh ya thats where I slept after my first leg of running.

My blanket is covering up the gear bags that I'm laying on

see my blankie there at the bottom I was scrunched up.

Jaynee's probably getting water. Notice how high the food is.

So they said ok lets load up so I get up and go outside then they were like oh Ingela is still in the shower just a min. Ya I layed down right there and slept.

This pretty much sums up our team, 2stubborn2stop and Jordan roped us all in by saying it will be fun

Notice the food level now this is right before leg 3

Van 1 and one person from van 2 were more concerned with the BYU game than supporting their own team. See all the medals around Jordans neck?

I finished. Jordan had these shirts made and I think we were the only ones that thought it was funny. I love it

Kanarraville falls

We went to Kanarraville falls on Saturday and had a blast. We decided we wanted to see how far up you could hike and if we could find where the water starts. We hiked farther than we ever had before and only stopped when we noticed leeches were attacking us.

While hiking up the trail we were singing songs most of which were Disney songs and church songs. I think I chose pretty good friends.

The water was soooo cold

My dad thinks this picture looks fake

See how carefully the guy is going down the rocks?

Well I was jumping from rock to rock running circles around the people I was with

they said I was crazy

So I was just walking along the river looking down into the river so I wouldn't slip and fall

when all of the sudden I was like ahhh. By this point I ended up in a group with just 3 boys, the girls were way to slow, and they couldn't stop laughing and wouldn't help me until they took pictures.

Fun in Salt Lake

Sunday was Roberts farewell so those of us living in Cedar drove up to Salt Lake to support him and to say our good-byes. The car I rode in left Saturday morning and got to Brian and Roberts at like 11ish. We had the best weekend ever when we got there their parents had ordered pizza for the group of us. There were 12 people sleeping, eating, and causing mischief, at their house. After eating we wanted something fun to do without spending any money, we are all college students after all. So we decided to meet up with some friends who live in the Salt Lake area at the Gateway mall. We played in the Mac store for a while then we went over to Dick’s and played with everything there. We even found a giant net and caught people in it. After getting bored at the mall, and being able to see the temple from there we decided to go walk around temple square.

On our way over to temple square we thought taking a tour of the temple grounds with the missionaries would be fun. I learned a lot about the buildings that I didn’t know before. Did you know that the tabernacle has the coolest acoustics ever?! A person can stand at the pulpit and talk in their normal voice and be heard all the way at the back of the room. They also did a demonstration where they turned pages of the Book of Mormon and dropped pins and nails. You could hear everything. When they first build it they discovered that it was too loud and you could hear every little thing that went on so they added the balcony later. They also told us an awesome story about how the organ that’s in there got there. We watched the movie about how families are forever. That is a cool presentation, if you haven’t seen it you should go and watch it. After the tour we just walked around the temple and took random pictures. When we decided we were all hungry we started to leave but there was a couple getting their wedding pictures taken so we waited for our whole group so we could walk past really fast so they wouldn’t have to wait for forever for us all to pass. Well as we were walking really fast past them the photographers started clicking furiously and asked us to come back so they could take more pictures. We walked past them like 4 times so they could take pictures. I have never been asked to be in a random persons picture before.  We managed to spend a whole day in Salt Lake and only spend $7 for parking.

After the temple Brian and Robert’s grandparents were nice enough to feed all of us and feed their family too. After dinner we sat around and talked for a little while then we went outside to play games. We decided to play missionary tag. Our game was pretty intense then slowly little cousins started to join and we had to become less intense.

Sunday was an awesome day. We managed to get 16 people up, showered, and dressed an hour before church started with only two bathrooms. Roberts talk was amazing, he is going to be an awesome missionary! The ward they are in is amazing, you know when you walk in to a ward as a visitor and you can just feel how they day is going to go? Well when you walked into this ward you could feel the love everyone had for each other. After sacrament we went back to their house to do the mingle thing. I was really tired so I laid down on the floor in the living room, not five minutes after I laid down my friends thought it would be fun to start throwing balls at each other and at me. My nap did not happen.  

We all made it back to Cedar safe and sound and ready for the next week of adventures.

The ways we find to entertain ourselves.

The guy is the one going on the mission.

He caught a good catch

One awesome group of friends.

Sarah, Rebecca, Robert, Kollin, Katie, Brian, Leisil,

Vanessa's head, me, Molly Skyler and Acasia is taking a picture

This is the most normal picture we got,

we're just a bunch of silly friends

Back at SUU!

OK so a lot has happened since my last blog. I don’t have pictures of like any of it (I couldn’t find my camera) but it was way fun.

We went to California for the weekend to go to Ashley’s wedding.

Finals at the world’s most unhelpful university, a.k.a. UVU, came and went and I got the grades that I expected to get and I moved out of that apartment and lived at home for 2 weeks, went to Lagoon once then moved to Cedar City.

Can I just tell everyone how much I love it in Cedar! The first day I was here the few others that were here played games and watched a movie, the next day they forgot about me! Can you believe that they forgot to invite me to Sand Hollow with them. I was very sad but they made it up to me by doing a spontaneous night swim at the manmade lake/pond thing. The next day we went to Park Discovery, this is one of the coolest parks I have ever been to. There are lots of places to explore and lots of places to hide, I love going there. Sunday was also jam packed with fun, church is at one so we all stayed out late Saturday night so we could sleep in. I love wards where you just walk in and feel at home. After church we went to the fireside then we had ward prayer and treats. After ward prayer we had dinner then we played games again.

Then today was the first day of classes, my classes start bright and early at 8 am, I know what you’re thinking you’re in college make a better schedule, well this class is only taught at two times and the other is during a time when a class is only taught at that time, total bummer. The day was going great I liked my classes and I got free lunch then I checked my e-mail. They changed a class so that it now comes with a $60 fee, that was fine they told me in the middle of the summer that was the case and there was no book listed for the course so I figured ok $60 it could be worse, oh it was worse. The teacher is requiring a book that she wrote and only one place has the rights to sell it so on top of the $60 we have to buy a book for $136! No way! I talked to a lot of people about this and have decided to see if I can get the $60 fee waived so I can afford to buy this book. I ended my school day with orchestra, I love going to orchestra because you know like your whole section and everyone just gets along and its way fun.

Now the fun started all over again. After orchestra we played Ultimate for like 3 hours, then went to FHE and played slip-n-slide kickball. You have to slide into 2^nd and home on a slip-n-slide it was way fun. After FHE we decided we weren’t finished having fun so we went to Park Discovery and played dot dot for like 2 hours. I have had more fun in the week that I’ve been in Cedar than I did all year at wolverine crossing.

As for my roommates, well we’ll just say they have deeper pockets than me and that I’m glad this isn’t my first year down here.

I forgot to mention the incredibly long hike that Steph got me to go on. She posted on Facebook who wants to go hike up a really cool river? Well it was very educational, not so much a river as a stream in a dry river bed, and a really long hike. We went so she could work on her senior project.  

This looks like how me and Dylan used to play together

JoJo was so tired by the end of the day that he went and

buckled himself in his seat hoping we would leave

I guess this is the park that my mom and Lisa used to play at all the time

It was really funny to hear them talk about playing there

If I smile while I poke it is that considered being soft?

this makes me think of Brian Regans Party Games bit.

this kid can down popsicles like no ones business

and finally my room in Cedar City